Journal entry 012711: A couple of things to learn

There are a couple of things we can all learn from a man named Naaman. The thought came to me Sunday morning when we discussed a classic Bible story featuring two men: Elisha, prophet of God, and Naaman, leader of the army of Aram. The Bible says Naaman was respected and honored by both his master (the king of Aram) and all of the people of the land. He was in charge of the nation’s army, as in Dwight Eisenhower or Colin Powell, a man of influence and fame.

But somewhere along the way during his journey to the top, Naaman contracted the incurable disease of leprosy. He must’ve had enough social standing and military honors by the time he got sick that he wasn’t tossed out of society, but no matter how big and strong he was, no matter how powerful and well-connected he was, he carried the mark of death on him. And leprosy was not a subtle disease that could be hidden from public view. It ravaged the victim’s skin and face; there was no hiding its death sentence.

The story from II Kings 5 reveals a lot about Naaman. For one thing, he was teachable. Twice in the story he took advice from servants. And not only was he teachable, he had the sort of relationship with his servants that made them want to help him and gave them courage to approach him even in his worst moments.

And Naaman was willing to listen and change his mind even in the middle of his rage. When his servant approached him as they left Elisha’s house, angry and offended and bitter, Naaman actually changed his mind and reversed his intended action. Most of us aren’t open to change once we have our mad worked up no matter how desperate we are.

If Naaman hadn’t listened to his servant, he would not have been healed of his leprosy. He would’ve gone back home and died a horrible death, there would’ve been a state funeral, and the story would’ve been over with no lives changed. Fortunately, that isn’t what happened.

One of Naaman’s greatest assets was a friend who was brave enough to tell him: You should look at this again and rethink your reaction; God is in this, go back and try again. We would all live better lives if we had friends like that. We would all be better friends if we spoke up whenever our own friends were about to miss God’s healing.

Another thing we can learn from Naaman is the importance of planning ahead. There is a part of this story after Naaman had been healed when he asked Elisha: “When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also - when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”

This was after Naaman had made his remarkable profession of faith, “Now I know there is no God in all the world except Israel.” How could he consider visiting the temple of another God?

It is easy to blame Naaman for not being true to his new-found faith. Easy to think he was already looking for a way out, hedging his bets, backing off from his rash statement. But I don’t think that’s what was going on. I believe Naaman had a true conversion. He was already wondering how he would live when he got back home. Becoming a changed man, with new skin and new heart, didn’t change the other details of his daily life.

In fact, if he had been backing away from his profession, he wouldn’t have had to say anything at all - just go on home and forget all about it. How would Elisha know?

Naaman was a military man and I doubt he made any moves without a strategy in place and objectives in mind. In this story he was already planning a strategy for living as a Believer in a hostile land.

He knew the king would notice his baby-soft skin and would want to go to the temple to worship. Naaman would have to deal with the king and Rimmon as soon as he got home.

We have to make the same strategy decisions every day. We have to decide how to live our lives as Christian men and women while surrounded by unbelievers in a hostile land. What should I do? How should I live? What is acceptable and what is forgiven? What is edifying and what destroys?

God accepts us wherever we are. Over and over through the Bible we see God moving toward people who take even the smallest step toward him. He doesn’t demand changes in behavior before he gives his grace. God knows that once someone accepts his grace, the changes will come.

(For the complete story of Naaman and Elisha, read II Kings 5)

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 012011: Deterioration and recovery

I have been reading about Abraham, the original patriarch of the Bible and founder of the Jewish people and Arab people. I am always surprised by the trajectory of his life, how his growth into a man of God, whose very name defined a life of faith, was not a simple linear progression. His maturing came in starts-and-stops, advances and regressions. One moment he showed great faith and trust in God, the next he gave away his wife to save his own life. I expect better from one of the Bible’s main characters.

In these past two weeks I’ve discovered once again how non-linear my own life is. I suffered a regression of my own. In this particular case I’m talking about my physical life rather than my spiritual life, although I’m increasingly aware that they are one and the same.

Only four weeks ago I was joyfully running with my granddaughter Madden, pushing her high-tech stroller through the neighborhood. And then, a few days later, I was struggling down the street on an aching knee, hoping someone would have pity on me and give me a ride back to the gym.

I went running for five miles Tuesday last week, and the first three miles were very good. I ran well, and lightly, and pushed the pace. But when I left the Par Course and walked across the street to avoid traffic, my right knee got suddenly stiff and tight and weak and I couldn’t run on it any more. I was done. I limped the two miles back to the gym. This was my RIGHT knee, my good leg. What was this all about? It made me nervous. It scared me.

It wasn’t my first experience with knee pain. In fact, if you are a regular reader of this journal you are probably sick of hearing about my knees.

Sometime during the fall of 2004 I started noticed pain in my LEFT knee. If I sat at a table or in the movie theater where I couldn’t straighten my leg it would begin to throb and ache. Eventually, it began to wake me up at night, and it often got swollen and puffy.

I stopped running on it. I would walk three miles four or five times a week and it didn’t seem to get any worse.

In May of 2005 I saw an orthopedist. His office took X-rays but didn’t see anything he could fix. He sent me home, telling me it was time to find another activity.

I slowly and gradually recovered, learned to tolerate the discomfort, and returned hiking and backpacking and marathoning back into my life.

That is, until last week when disaster struck again. Only it was my RIGHT knee this time, and because I was afraid I’d done real damage, I scheduled an appointment with Cyndi’s orthopedist. I was jealous that Cyndi recovered so quickly after he repaired her knee last summer, and I didn’t want to go through six more years of limping if I didn’t have to.

They X-rayed both knees. The PA put me on the table and pressed all the pressure points and moved and twisted my knee and leg. She said there was no evidence of tendon or ligament damage. She said the problem was the same thing I heard back in 2005, arthritis. I have lost cartilage in both knees. She showed me several bone spurs that were evidence of meniscus damage. I also had a strange elongated bone spur on my left knee cap that probably resulted from an ancient fracture.

(I looked it up when I got home: I fell on my left knee while Rollerblading with Katie on Wednesday, June 8, 1994. I hit the sidewalk pretty hard that day, and on occasion afterward I would point out to Cyndi how I thought there might be a tiny bone fragment moving around my kneecap.)

My doctor’s visit was disappointing. I had been hoping for a torn ligament or damaged tendon, something that could be repaired and restored. No such luck. Osteoarthritis can’t be repaired overnight.

The PA said the only real solution was eventual knee replacement. I told her I would need to feel a lot more pain than I’ve felt before I would think about that. She recommended treating my knees with Aleve, Glucosamine, and Synvisc. The good news is I won’t blow up or tear something if I keep moving. The bad news is all I have to look forward to is more deterioration. I have to learn to be patient, even resilient, take the long view, and all that. Like Abraham, be prepared for ups and downs.

I don’t know if Abraham had bad knees. Odds are everyone had bad knees 4,000 years ago. His grandson, Jacob, had a bad hip and walked with a limp, but we don’t know how Abraham walked except that he walked with God. And his life was as much about recovery as it was about accomplishment

That’s not so bad. I can live with that. I’ve started the recovery process already.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 011311: Running with Madden

Wednesday morning before Christmas I had the good fortune to run for 45 minutes with my 10-month-old granddaughter, Madden. Actually, I was the only one running; she rode the entire time in her BOB stroller.

I started planning this run months ago, as soon as we learned Madden would be spending the week with us. I hoped to be able to fit in at least one stroller run. They didn’t have cool strollers like this when our own kids were babies and Cyndi and I had to take turns staying home while the other ran.

Running with Madden brought back a lot of memories from those old days. I remembered how I’d take Byron and Katie to the playground at Essex Park while I ran laps around the park boundary, about three laps to the mile. It wasn’t easy. Every time I passed near the playground, located on the north end of the park, I heard, “Daddy watch me swing,” or “Daddy watch me go down the slide.”  Later, I tried the same routine at the Windlands Par Course but the playground was too far away from the trail to feel comfortable about safety and all that.

Cyndi used to take both kids with her to play in the sand box, otherwise known as the long jump pit, at Memorial Stadium while she ran intervals on the track. Sometimes the sprinklers would be on and the kids had more fun running back and forth through the water.

When they got old enough to ride bikes they would often ride alongside when I ran. That didn’t last long, though; they soon lost interest in riding five miles without the promise of a coke or ice cream or snow cone.

They both spent too many Saturday mornings in our Astro minivan while Cyndi and I set up equipment for a morning race. They ate cold pizza for breakfast, leftovers from the previous night’s packet-stuffing party. That is, until they started entering races themselves, when they learned that old pizza was not the best pre-workout meal.

So back to modern times, Madden and I had a great run together. She won’t remember much about it, though, since she fell asleep as soon as we left the house. She finally woke up crying about two blocks from home. Maybe she was cold, it was 38*F and I’m certain I didn’t bundle her up as much as her mom or grandmother would’ve, or maybe she was disappointed in my slow pace. She is used to going out at her mom’s quicker pace.

Last year I went through an exercise with several of my best guys where we wrote down 100 life goals, and one of my goals was to go backpacking with my grandchildren. Wednesday morning’s run was a long way from backpacking, but it was a move in the right direction. I can’t wait to do more things together.

Dr. Leo Cooney, founder and director of the Section of Geriatrics at the Yale School of Medicine said, “Exercise is not the Holy Grail (of graceful aging). If there’s a Holy Grail, it’s relationships with other people. In fact, if you have to decide between going to the gym or being with your grandchildren, I’d choose the grandchildren.” I don’t know if Cooney is a runner, so I can’t know if that was actually a hard choice for him to make. However, I can say Thanks to Madden, for allowing me to do both. I hope it’s not our last time.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 010611: More good news

Here’s some good news: I went to Dallas for two days to spend time with our son, Byron. (Before you correct me on which cities I actually visited, I refer to anything east of Weatherford as “Dallas.” Incorrect and inaccurate, I know, and possibly offensive to some, but efficient.) Byron didn’t come home over the holidays since he had to work, so I took Christmas gifts with me. Also, as Cyndi pointed out, I went to remind him that we love him and think about him often and wish we saw more of him. And like that.

More good news, I didn’t have to spend the ten hours driving back and forth on I-35 since Tanya, my sister-in-law and a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines, gave me a buddy pass so I could fly. And being Monday morning the plane was not crowded. And, I successfully solved the “Hard” Sudoku puzzle while we were still in the air.

Just before we took off I overheard a conversation between a young parent and two small children. The kids were being impatient and wanted drinks and peanuts and everything else, so the parent told them “You have to follow the rules,” Good advice, I thought. That bad news was that even in the middle of talking about rules, the parent was using a cell phone that should have been turned off.

More good news, traffic was light so I made good time driving to the Olive Garden in Addison where Byron worked. The bad news happened when I went inside to ask for a table in Byron Simpson’s section and the young hostess looked through her binder and said, “Oh, he isn’t working today.”

That was strange. We had talked about meeting for lunch at his restaurant. Was he sick? Had his plans changed and he didn’t tell me? I fretted about it some, called and left a message, sent a text, then drove to REI on 635 to replace the hiking boots I lost last summer.

The good news was that REI had the same boots I had last summer and wanted another pair of, but even better, they had a waterproof model.

The bad news was that they didn’t have any boots in my size in any model. I guess they sold them all over the Christmas holidays. The only reason I hadn’t ordered a pair of the boots already was because I didn’t know the size I needed. Now, they were out of boots, and I still didn’t know what size.

However, good news again, the cash-register guy used my REI Membership Number to look up past purchases and he found the size of my last pair of boots. So even though I didn’t leave with boots under my arm or on my feet, I knew the model and size I wanted; I could order a pair when I got home.

The good news continued, because as I drove away from REI Byron phoned me. He had been working all morning and was surprised that the hostess said he wasn’t. That was when I learned the he worked in Plano, not Addison. Bummer. That was bad news. I was sure I knew where he worked. I should’ve asked someone (Cyndi, Katie, Byron) for confirmation. However, it would’ve been helpful if the hostess had said he “never” worked there instead of saying he “wasn’t at work.”

Well, since Byron had to work the evening shift, I told him I would be back for dinner. That was good news for him since I tip really well when my own son is waiting on me.

It was also good news that I now had time before dinner to drive to White Rock Lake and run. So I drove to the lake and parked in the lot on the hill at the northeast shore near the bridge.

Then, once again, there was more bad news. I realized I needed to go somewhere to fulfill my biological obligations, and I needed to do it right away. I couldn’t hold out until I ran all the way to one of the park restrooms. So I got back in the car and drove south to a McDonald’s and used their facilities.

Back to the lake, I parked in the lot on Lawther on the west shore. I dug around for my phone to check the temperature but I couldn’t find it. I had the sinking feeling I had left my phone the men’s room at McDonalds. That was bad news, indeed.

So I raced back down to the McDonald’s and found my phone on the counter right where I left it. Whoa, good news. And a surprise, as well.

Now, once more to the lake, where I parked again on the west side and crawled into the back seat of my car to change clothes. I finally started running, clockwise around the lake, at 3:30 PM.

By the time I finished my run it was dark and getting cold. I made the run just fine, but my legs felt hard and stiff. I decided that I should reconsider joining Katie at February’s Cowtown Marathon. There was no way I could be ready in only two months. More bad news.

During the run I listened to a podcast featuring Eric Bryant, and he was great. It was his farewell sermon at Mosaic before moving to Austin to serve in Gateway Church. He talked about a man in the Old Testament portion of the Bible, King Ahaz, who said he didn’t want to try God’s patience by asking for a sign, as if he were the sort of king who always talked to God and cared about offending him.

Good news, God gave him a sign anyway … but the sign would be Jesus, born hundreds of years later. It’s hard to know how this could have been useful to Ahaz, but it was a message that his tiny story was part of a bigger narrative. That his tiny circumstances, which seemed so big to him in the moment, paled in comparison with what God was doing across the centuries. God’s sign was also a reminder to us that we are more than our daily story, we are part of the bigger grander narrative of God, and we can never fully understand the long-term purposes of what God says and does with us.

So more good news; after my run I drove to Plano and had dinner with Bryon. Well, I ate while he worked, but we had fun together cracking jokes and making plans for the next day

At a table across the room sat a body-builder guy with a huge chest and bulging biceps accented by a tastefully-tight T-shirt. He was sitting with his cute tiny blonde girlfriend and they couldn’t decide which desserts to order. Finally, he actually pointed his finger at the menu, and I’m not making this up, his lips silently said, “Eenie-meanie-miney-moe.” How curious that such a huge powerful guy would play a child’s game to make a decision that he hoped would impress his date. I guess we all run home to our upbringing when we can’t decide what to do. At least, as a parent, we hope our kids do that.

Back home in Midland we had some final bad news: our friend and the builder of our home, Gary Kahler, passed away this week from cancer. Yet the good news today at his funeral was how many people were there. For such a quiet and unassuming man, Gary left a huge wake behind him. I especially noticed how many subcontractors and home owners were there. It speaks well for a man to be honored and respected by both his suppliers and his customers. Once again I was reminded of the long-term impact of a life well lived, and how a humble righteous man of character can change the world. That is very good news indeed.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 123010: Taking advantage

This in-between week is a soft time of the year for me - after the rush of Christmas and before the New Year beginning. I try hard not to waste it.

It should come as no surprise that I’m a goal-setter and a list-maker. I like to write my goals on paper in a list so I can check them off. When working with daily goals or weekend projects, I even draw little boxes beside each item so I have a place to put my checkmark. It’s one of my best qualities, and something I like about myself.

However, some of my goals have been on my list for so long they aren’t really goals at all, but minimal expectations. I don’t mean the ones that I’ve never accomplished, like weigh 175#, but the ones I do year after year after year. Such as reading a lot of books, or reading through the Bible, or working out every day …

Here are some of my thoughts concerning the year 2011. These aren’t exactly goals, yet, but they are the directions I am leaning. Think of them as more like guidelines.

As I move my office into my home I must take advantage of the moment and make other meaningful changes in my personal schedule and structure. A change of location shouldn’t be wasted.

I will continue to pursue reentering the engineering workforce. That shouldn’t be so difficult, in fact it should be obvious, but my desire for independence and my longing to write and publish are so strong they often trump common sense solutions. My preference would be for part-time contract engineering work so I can continue to devote serious chunks of time to writing, but I can already feel a change in my heart toward traditional employment if the opportunity arises. After all, I’ve been praying for months for God to change my heart for the next step.

I want to resurrect my use of memory verse cards when I’m running. One of the disciplines taught to me by my college friend Ray was to write Bible verses on small cards and memorize them. Later when I began running I would carry them with me and work on them, and the Word eventually wove its way into my heart. In the past years I’ve drifted away from that practice, and now I spend more time listening to podcasts when I run. I enjoy listening and I don’t want to drop it entirely, but I’d like to renew the influence of those verses in my life.

We have a lot of family photos that we used to display in our old house and most of them are still in boxes in our new garage even after living here for two years. I want to change that. The older I get the more I treasure the stories behind those photos, and they deserve better treatment. I want to find a place to put them, to remind me of how God has blessed our life, and to provide an opportunity to tell the stories.

I want to go backpacking in the Big Bend Ranch State Park before it gets too hot. I would love to hear any recommendations for a two-night base-camp type of trip.

I want to understand our TV better. One reason I don’t watch much TV is I get exhausted paging through all the channels I will never watch (home shopping, reality programs, Hollywood insider, etc.) trying to find something I want to see. Surely there is a way to hide the channels we don’t subscribe to and hide the channels we won’t watch. I just haven’t cared enough about it to engage the problem. I should do better.

I hope to accept help, even ask for help, more often. When people like me avoid letting other people help them, well, that sounds more noble that it really is, and it isn’t what living in community is all about. When Cyndi and I visited the Wittes in northern Uganda in 2005, we were appalled by the way the Karimojong people were always begging from each other, a practice guaranteed to dissolve a friendship in the United States. However, they needed each other to survive, and begging was an important part of their inter-dependence. I want to learn better communal skills from the Karimojong - not begging, necessarily, but letting other people help me.

I want to run two or three marathons, and at least one 50K. And I want to work hard to lower my pace from its current death-shuffle to (at least) a respectable trot.

I should spend the money to buy a replacement motor for our drop-down movie screen. I have avoided it long enough. The odds of me inventing a better, cheaper solution have diminished to zero. It’s time to move on.

My second book should be ready for sale in January, and I am currently working on my third. I have a huge backlog of writing, and after all these years I’ve finally learned how to pull it together in book form. Now, all I need is the courage to follow through.

I will be more aggressive inviting people to subscribe to my (free) weekly Journal Entries, and in marketing books and seeking opportunities to speak to groups. Writing and teaching are gifts I must follow with more intention if I am to prove faithful to the God who gave them to me.

So this is my recommendation to you. Understand that unexpected change should be seen as an opportunity rather than a burden. I used to believe that incremental changes were best, and often they are, but I am beginning to see the value of clumping my changes, especially with respect to personal disciplines and habits. Making a lot of changes at once creates energy and stirs up courage.

Take advantage of these soft times of the year when heart and mind are open to ideas. The rest of the time we live too rushed and too crowded to entertain new thoughts. Start your list now, and join me as we lean into 2011.

(Send a copy of your goals/leanings/guidelines to me. Maybe we can help each other. I would value any advice regarding my own list.)

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 122310: Traditional story

One of our oldest family Christmas traditions is to read the book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson. Cyndi reads it in the car whenever we drive from Midland to Hobbs for Thanksgiving, and it lasts almost perfectly from driveway to driveway. And we read an abridged version during one of our adult Bible study classes every year.

The book opens with this description: “The Herdmans were the worst kids in the whole history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars, even the girls, and talked dirty and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken down tool house. They went through the Woodrow Wilson School like those South American fish that strip your bones clean.”

Published in 1972, it’s a story of six unruly children who pause from terrorizing the town just long enough to secure all the main parts in the annual Christmas pageant in spite of the fact they knew nothing about the Nativity story. They joined the pageant because they heard there were snacks involved; but before it was all over, they illustrated the true meaning of the birth of Christ in a way never seen in the previous traditional, controlled, well-behaved pageants.

One reason the Herdman children were so effective when performing the Christmas story was because they were hearing it themselves for the first time even as they performed. And they played the parts from their own life experiences rather from the pre-conceived traditional images most people expected.

The story of Jesus, which is to say, THE STORY of all time, doesn’t land in our laps in pristine condition like a falling star straight from heaven. No, Jesus’ story flows through the lives of real people, and it bears the marks of their personalities and shortcomings and struggles and victories. It is amazing that God trusted human beings to bear his story through our lives.

There are so many ways to tell the Christmas story. We read the gospel accounts, we stage live nativity presentations, we give big choir and orchestra performances, we send Christmas cards, we decorate our houses and yards, we wear Christmas sweaters, we sing Christmas carols, and we give our dollar bills to the Salvation Army bell ringers. Maybe we do most of these because they have become warm traditions for us, but I believe the real motivation runs much deeper. We do all these things, because we are telling the story of Jesus through our lives and actions, and that story changes both the teller and listeners in more ways than we can know.

Last Sunday morning I read the genealogical record from Matthew 1 to our young-adult Bible study class. It might have been the first time in my life to ever read one of those long lists of Bible names out loud. I have taught adult Bible study classes for 20 years but I always passed over the genealogies. In fact I always wondered why the Bible included all those obscure names. But the genealogy of Mathew 1 is a list of people who had one big thing in common - each person could put on their tombstone, “I made it possible for you to know Jesus.” They weren’t all good people, in fact some of them were downright evil, but the story of Jesus flowed through their lives and ended up in our ears.

The Jesus story flows through the lives of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the wise men. It flows through the long list of lives of Matthew 1. It flows through people who are more like the Herdmans than we’d care to admit. And it flows through you and me.

This year, let the Jesus story flow freely through your life. That is exactly the version we all need to hear.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 121610: Transitions

Monday afternoon I found myself praying as I walked from the Village Car Wash on Andrews Highway to Whataburger. I’m much more patient to wait if I have someplace else to go and something to work on; if I’m stuck in the car wash waiting room, held captive by their loud TV, I quickly get anxious and irritable. So I choose car washes near to my regular spots, near enough for walking. And this time, I guess the rhythm of walking turned my mind to prayer.

I asked God for help during this current time of transition in our family, to open my ears and heart to hear and respond to what he wanted for me. And then it occurred to me that I’d continuously prayed for help through bouts of transition for years. It came as a surprise: we were always in transition. I had convinced myself that our past lives were more settled and predictable, but it wasn’t true. They only appeared simple in retrospect. None of those times seemed settled while we were living through them. Life was always moving and we were in transition all the time.

I often hear people wish that they could live in the past when times were simpler and language was softer and teenagers were responsible and life was at peace, but those days exist only in our imagination. The people who lived then never said to one another, “Aren’t we lucky to be living in simple times.” No, they were fighting and scratching for survival every day, just like all people have done since the beginning.

And I had to admit there was never a time when I said to Cyndi, “Aren’t we lucky to have such peaceful and stable lives.” For one thing I’d never say something like that out loud because I’d be afraid to jinx it, like mentioning a no-hitter during the game; but besides that, we’ve always lived on lumpy ground yearning for future days when things would settle down a bit. It never happened. Never will.

But Monday afternoon, even as I prayed and walked past the convenience store on my way to Whataburger, I realized that transitions were not something to simply live through, they were the essence of life itself. If we didn’t have unknowns ahead of us, if we didn’t have to improvise our way through the key changes, what a boring un-life we would have. Where would the energy come from? Where would our joy come from?

Cyndi reminds me that balance is only peaceful on the surface; underneath it is constant movement. When Cyndi is balanced on one leg in Warrior III, she appears to be completely relaxed and peaceful, but if you look closely you can see the muscles in her feet firing right and left and the muscles in her legs hugging the bones and her ribs stretching and expanding. Balancing requires a lot of movement, but it’s the movement itself that makes it all worthwhile. And it’s the constant adjustment and improvisation that makes our life worthwhile.

When would I turn to God if I weren’t living through moments of transition, wobbly on my pegs trying to stay balanced? Why would God want to give me a stable life that allows me to ignore our relationship?

So I kept praying as I walked toward Whataburger: “Help us through this current set of transitions and get us ready for the next round. Speak to me in my ears and in my heart about the correct decisions I should make and the wise path I should walk as I move my office location, consider more consulting work, learn how to write books, learn how to market books, dive deeper into the lives of my guys, share my home, help Cyndi transition from teacher to business owner, try to replace diminishing oil and gas cash flow, and try to keep running on bum knees. Thank you, God, for transitions that pull me to you.”

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32 

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 120910: Too slow?

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m embarrassed to be running so slow nowadays.

Not that I was ever very fast. In my “prime,” my best 10K was 47:00 and best marathon was 3:52, and both of those happened way back in the 1980s. Since then I’ve been getting slower every year.

But lately it’s even worse. I’m running so slow I’m afraid I’ll topple over. I’m even too slow to meditate and contemplate without losing my balance.

It traces back to 2004 when my left knee first started hurting. I eventually stopped running altogether to give it time to rest, reverting to walking every day instead. When I eventually started running again I didn’t notice how much I’d slowed down since even a slow run is faster than walking. It wasn’t until I started running races again that I realized how much my pace had disintegrated.

So about six months ago I decided I should go to the track for some speed workouts. I’m not sure if track workouts really make you faster, or if the suffering just allows you to move to the next level. Like Mario Brothers, maybe it buys you the right to move up.

You might point out that my video game references are as old as my running P.R.s, and that instead of track workouts I just need a bushier mustache and a funnier hat. Well, maybe.

After putting it off for months I finally went to the track on Monday of this week. I would’ve continued to put it off another week but before leaving for my regular Monday run I discovered my iPod had lost all of its charge. Instead of doing my six miles in silence I decided to go to the track.

My legs and knees have been so stiff I was afraid of running quarters. I decided to sprint (defined loosely) 100 meters and walk 300 meters, and just see how many laps I could go before I hurt myself.

The first 100-meter sprint was a disaster. I was peg-legged and flat-footed, my knee hurt and I couldn’t breathe. This workout won’t last long is what I told myself.

But to my surprise the 2^nd 100-meters was easier than the first. And the third was easier and smoother than the second. And the fourth was even better. Instead of getting harder each time, they got easier. Who would’ve guessed that?

Unfortunately they didn’t continue to get easier or I would still be there running at the track. After the fourth one they stayed the same; but they didn’t get harder. I ran eight and then went back to the gym before I hurt something that would take a long time to heal. Now I realize I was only sprinting 100 meters, which is hardly a long distance, but it was hard work for my stiff legs just the same as if I’d done longer intervals. It felt like victory.

I remembered a quote from Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin; he wrote: “When you feel the resistance, the stall, the fear, and the pull, you know you’re on to something.”

So in the context of running I shouldn’t be too quick to back off when I feel those early pains … my legs and shins usually feel worse in the first mile than the entire rest of the run. And today, it was my first interval that was the most painful. If I’d stopped then I never would’ve felt the joy of the next seven.

However, simply doing something because it is hard or scary or painful is not enough of a reason. Again, Seth Godin wrote, “You have to determine if the route is worth the effort; if it’s not, dream bigger.”

It’s the dreaming bigger that makes the effort worth it. I would have a much easier life if I’d just gone to lunch when my iPod quit last Monday instead of going to the track, and I’ll admit I’ve made that choice more than once, but there is no hope in sitting down. In fact, very few easy choices bring hope; who wants to live a life without hope.

Well, there are probably more lessons to tell from Monday but running on the track always reduces my memory and I forget all my best ideas. Maybe I need to slow down so I’ll have more time to think.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 120210: Identity

I suffered an identity crises. Or worse, I lost my identity. My laptop, where I spend more time in front of than anywhere else except for in front of Cyndi, decided to throw our three-year friendship over the side and refused to acknowledge my presence. It looked me in the face and asked, “Who are you?” Like a lifelong best friend who suddenly and without explanation stopped talking to you and never gave a reason, my laptop simply stopped recognizing me as its owner and assigned a temporary identity to me. It was discouraging, to say the least.

The sad tale actually started about two weeks ago when the internet connection at our house started misbehaving. It would work for a while, then shut off for an hour, then work for several hours, and then shut down for two days. It was a big deal because we have three adult internet users in our house. Tanya uses it to schedule her flights with Southwest Airlines and Cyndi uses it as a fifth-grade teacher and to run her yoga studio. I use it work on websites and publish books and goof around on Facebook. We were lost without our internet connection. We thought about asking our next-door neighbors if we could temporarily jump on their home network but we were afraid that was too much to ask for, nice people though they are.

But Saturday afternoon the AT&T man came to our house with his tool kit, and after some poking and tuning and typing, he discovered the power supply to our 2-Wire router was bad. He replaced it and we were back online. Our global access to information came back and we were happy.

That is, one of us was happy. Cyndi immediately got online and, as you might imagine, she jumped up-and-down with glee. She would’ve hugged the AT&T man except she went right to work on the projects she’d been waiting to finish. Alas, I couldn’t join her. It was at that very moment of victory that my laptop crossed its arms, pouted its silver metallic lips, and refused to acknowledge my existence.

For an introspective like me, personal identity is always a moving target, more of a guideline than a specific definition, but I never expected to be rejected by my computer. It reminded me of a recent long run when the charge in my GPS watch ran out before I was finished running and the watch display went blank. When I looked at it to check my pace and mileage and saw nothing but a white screen, I got wobbly – uncertain - vertigo, which was silly since I knew where I was and knew I was only 1-1/2 miles from home. But for an instant it felt like my entire morning had been pointless, and the 9 miles I’d already run had been for naught. Eventually, after walking through my haze of existential angst, I realized it was silly to think the miles existed in my watch instead of in my legs. The real value of the run hadn’t changed at all, and after I talked myself into feeling better, I limped on home.

So the good news about my pouty computer was that I was pretty sure I hadn’t lost anything creative. I still had files of practice writing, and still had all my essays and journals, and still had my books and all my clever witty insights. I wasn’t sure whether I could recover my emails and contacts, however.

It took me a day, but eventually I caught my breath and realized my life would be all right. Maybe this was even something of a sideways blessing, an opportunity to start anew. I’ve always touted the value of fresh starts, maybe this was my opportunity to bury past emails from the Nigerian National Bank and stale contact information from 1998, and limp on in to the future. Maybe it would turn out to be my time of Jubilee.

But it worked out better than that. My friend-on-a-white-horse, Frank, helped me reestablish my identity and find my data (or, should I say, rebuilt my life). In fact, my computer now works just fine. We aren’t best friends again, yet, but we’re at least good acquaintances. However, Frank warned me that the problems I had experienced were warning shots. My hard disk was doomed to failure, and it probably wouldn’t be long. I restored my profile just enough to do work, but I’ll only go so far with a computer that won’t last. I’ll only show just so much of myself to a short-timer. A computer has to promise to stick with me before learning my full identity.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 112510: A Thanksgiving tradition

Hunting for Christmas trees at the Tramperos Ranch in northeast New Mexico is a Thanksgiving tradition we’ve left behind, and I miss it – even though there were some years when Christmas tree hunting was a wild adventure.

I remember the time it was 36 degrees with a 40-mph wind and we made record time. From the moment we first started talking about leaving the warm basement to actually driving down the road took only twenty minutes. Our previous record was one-and-a-half hours. The secret that year may have been the cold wind, or it may have been that we were only taking eleven people instead of the usual of twenty or more.

It was a tradition within the Atchley clan (my in-laws, their children, and spouses) to gather Christmas trees on Friday after Thanksgiving. We usually spent most of the day deciding whether to go before or after naptime, and how many pick-up trucks we’d need. This was not trivial since the family proved to be prolific breeders through the years and it took several pick-ups to haul all the cousins and aunts and uncles. It also took a long time to round up coats, gloves, hats, axes, and saws.

During most of our tree-hunting years, the ranch was owned and operated by Cyndi’s grandfather, Forrest Atchley. My small, four-member family went there for Thanksgiving every odd-numbered year, and whenever we went we brought home a Christmas tree or two. One year we brought home four: one for our home, two for Greathouse Elementary School, and one for the Lee Freshman High School Band hall.

Christmas tree hunting was not easy. The best trees were located far from the road and were surrounded by rocks and cactus and were hard to get to. The very best trees were always on the next hill over from the one where we were standing. In fact, there was no sense in even looking at trees until we’d hiked over the hill and the pickups were out of sight.

Hunting the perfect tree was also not haphazard. In a family steeped in tradition, as this one is, there is a correct sequence, a specific protocol, required to get the most from every experience.

First, we climbed all over the rocky mesa and steep canyons to find the absolutely perfect tree. We usually had to identify two or three perfect trees before deciding which one was good enough, and everyone in the family must agree on which tree was the most perfect. Up on the mesa, it took a lot of negotiating among husbands and wives and brothers and sisters to broker an agreement.

Sometimes the best trees had one flat side to put against the wall. Occasionally they had two flat sides, to fit in the corner. The best trees had only one main trunk, but a double-trunk tree would work as long as the sawyer could cut low enough to get both. The best trees often had pine cones on the branches. Also, the best trees were small enough to strap on top of an Astro Minivan, later a Ford Explorer, for the long ride home to Midland.

Every family had their own idea of perfection – some liked squatty fat trees, some liked flat-sided open-branched trees, some liked short Charlie Brown trees, and some, like Cyndi and I, cut only the very best symmetrical trees, perfect in every way. We never settled for those bushes the other cousins and aunts and uncles thought were adequate. Of course, they all thought their standards were higher than ours. However, regardless of specifications and selection, once a tree was cut, it became perfect. It was bad form to criticize each other’s selections; we were all expected to praise the choice of each family. We didn’t cut a tree and then throw it down to find another, oh no; once a tree was cut it was guaranteed a home.

One year Cyndi and I saw a particularly well-shaped small table-top sized tree up the hill among a pile of rocks. I climbed up only to discover it was actually a series of small trunks surrounding a 2-inch sawed-off stump. What looked like a perfect tree from a distance was the last desperate attempt of a root system whose main trunk had been cut years before. Not only was that particular tree showing tenacity and determination, it did so with style and humor. It was a survivor and it was beautiful. We saluted it, and moved on

The second step in the tree hunting protocol was that all the other families had to relinquish any claims to that particular tree even if they thought they saw it first. Sometimes that took a while, and may have included a promise to cook someone’s favorite dessert.

Step three: the oldest male in the family, or the closest male holding a saw in his hand, got to lie down on the cold rocky ground to cut the tree trunk with a bow saw, while one of the strong females pulled the tree over to one side to make the cutting easier.

Norman Rockwell paintings always show Christmas tree hunters carrying an ax, but don’t believe them. We used bow saws, which weren’t as fulfilling or as manly as using an ax, but much more practical. The trees on the mesas grew nestled among rocks and cactus and it was too hard to get a clean blow with an ax. I’ve heard of people who use a chainsaw to cut their Christmas tree, but they are probably the same people who spell Christmas, X-mas. We weren’t those people.

The last step in the process was to load all the trees and all the cousins and kids onto the pickup trucks and drive back to the houses. In the case of our family, we added another step, the ritual of tying our trees onto the top of our Ford Explorer. It wasn’t easy in the cold wind, and we usually had several trees to tie down. Cyndi often got so fretful about the gigantic pile of evergreen on top of her car that we sent her inside to make hot chocolate for everyone. After all, what could go wrong with an engineer and an Eagle Scout and two fifty-foot ropes?

As our own family grew up and changed, and as the larger family expanded and separated, we haven’t kept up this tree hunting ritual. Cyndi and I haven’t participated in the last six or seven years. However, we will always have great memories of hand-picking the most perfect Christmas tree from those New Mexico mesas, cutting them ourselves, tying them onto our Explorer, and singing carols all the way home to Midland. It’s one of our best family memories ever.

 

The Simpson family showing off our perfect tree for 1993

A load of cousins and trees, a successful huntung trip

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32 

To learn about Berry’s book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com … Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org